


In Defiance of the Stars

by OchibaKonpeki



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: :), Age Difference, Angst, Blind Peter Parker, Curses, Deaf Peter Parker, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Happy Ending, Love, M/M, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Smut, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-08 09:22:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21473698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OchibaKonpeki/pseuds/OchibaKonpeki
Summary: Peter has accidentally activated a curse. Unfortunately for everyone involved, no one can leave until the terms of the curse are fulfilled.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Stephen Strange, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 17
Kudos: 133





	In Defiance of the Stars

This was, as most things were, completely and utterly Tony’s fault. It had been so stupid. Less than two minutes after Strange’s ominous and pretentious warning about not touching anything until he’s examined all the items stacked around the faux living room the basement of the old house had been fashioned into, Peter had said, “Huh, that’s a weird symbol.”

And instead of saying something responsible like, “Don’t touch it” or “I’ll come take a look” or “I’ll be right there,” he’d said, “Let me see.”

And Peter, eager to please, always so, so painfully eager to please, had plucked the object from its satin resting place and taken an over-eager step and half towards Tony, only to stop abruptly, fear and confusion clouding his beautiful green eyes as the ground beneath him burst into a stunning white glow that shot out in intricate knotting patterns in every direction across the floor and up the walls. 

Tony hadn’t seen the rest—Peter had shrieked, and then the suit was on and his arms were wrapped tightly around the small spandex-clad figure, all his attention focused on the displays that showed the kid’s vitals, all elevated but within normal range. When he looked up, there was no destruction or immediate threat, however. Just Strange, glaring at them both like they were idiots, Steve, looking worried, and Thor, staring up at the glowing words in strange script that had appeared upon the stone wall with a serious and unsurprised expression. 

“Is that... Gaelic?” Strange asked incredulously as his eyes followed Thor’s gaze to the wall. 

The man nodded slowly as Tony attempted to disentangle himself from the young man clinging hard to his armor—even denting it in places—his breath coming fast and uneven. “Indeed,” Thor boomed as Tony made little calming, hushing noises at Peter, still trying to scan him for the source of his distress. “A very common tongue on my home planet.”

At last admitting defeat, Tony allowed his mask to slide up and demanded—quietly, trying not to interrupt the magic nerd party going on over to their left— “Kid, please, just tell me what’s wrong.”

“Then you can read it,” he heard Strange surmise as Peter finally lifted his head, eyes unseeing as he tilted it back and forth, as though looking for something. 

“Well, no,” Thor acquiesced as Peter held his hand in front of his face and squinted, his other still locked around Tony’s forearm in a vice grip. “I did not take Gaelic as part of my tutoring, but Western Gnomish. Loki always teased me for that, saying that Gaelic was more useful than Western Gnomish. He would say things like, ‘Brother, you could have at least taken Eastern Gnomish.’ You see, Eastern Gnomish has more speakers than Western Gnomish, but I’ve always believed—”

Peter’s voice sliced through everything, chilling due to content, the unnaturally loud volume, and the suppressed panic that quickly unleashed as the kid’s personal horror became evident to them all in starts and pieces. “Wow, it’s _really _dark in here, huh, guys?” he said loudly. His face tightened in terror then, and before Tony could finish saying, _Kid, can you not see? _he was already frantically shouting, “Wait, I can’t hear myself talk. Am I deaf? Did we all go deaf? Mr. Stark, can you hear me?”

“I can hear you,” Tony whispered, horrified to his bones, looking down at Peter’s unfocused gaze. But Peter clearly didn’t understand and Tony didn’t know how to make him understand.

After a brief pause, Peter shuffled uncomfortably, then turned his hand to rest palm up on Tony’s arm and suggested, “One tap yes, two taps no?”

Blinking rapidly, he retracted his gauntlet and tapped the boy’s palm once with his forefinger. Peter instantly relaxed, having found some way of receiving information, and then he asked, “So you can hear me?” Tap. “Can everyone else hear me?” Tap. “Is it the curse? Am I deaf because of the curse?” Tap. “Did the lights go out when I touched the brooch?”

Moment of truth. Tony hesitated, looking up at Steve, who lifted a shoulder in bewilderment, offering no help. He tapped Peter’s palm twice, watching with deep pain as Peter’s face flickered through fear and grief and landed on resignation. “So I’m also blind now?” Tap. “Can we fix it?”

Tony looked up at Strange, lips parting to say something that would likely be rude and demanding, but the man beat him to the punch, assuring him as he approached, “Yes, the symptoms should stop as soon as we break the curse.” Relieved, Tony tapped Peter’s palm again and sighed, guilt pooling in his gut as the boy’s shoulders untensed and a small smile quirked at his lips. So much instant, limitless, bottomless trust, and Tony _hadn’t even protected him._

Tony shifted back a little to allow Strange access to Peter, though he allowed the kid to leave his hand wrapped around Tony’s arm for security. Strange gently tapped Peter’s shoulder, letting him know he was there, and the boy jumped. “Who is that?” he asked skittishly.

Without pause, Strange wrapped his fingers around Peter’s skinny wrist and lifted his hand to his face. Peter convulsed as though to withdraw in his surprise, but Strange held his hand there, encouraging him to feel the side of his face. “Dr. Strange?” he asked tentatively, and the magician nodded with his hand still pressing Peter’s to his cheek. 

Something dark and ugly lifted its head in Tony’s chest at the oddly intimate sight—Peter’s slight, delicate fingers on Strange’s masculine, stubbled features; the way the man’s deeply scarred hands wrapped around Peter’s thin wrist; the intensity of the taller man’s grey gaze as he stared down at the boy Tony held protectively in his arms. He pushed it down, ignoring the way it flared, inflamed, as Strange stroked the back of Peter’s hand with his thumb and murmured, “You’ll be just fine. Let me take a look.”

He forced himself to step away, reminding the angry creature in his chest that the man _was _a doctor and also the most highly qualified curse breaker in the room. “Cap,” he said instead, locking eyes with the large man hovering nearby, looking as helpless as Tony felt. “I wasn’t listening. What are the rules here again?”

Steve glanced at Strange, but Tony didn’t follow his gaze. “Dr. Strange said that it’s a cursed room, designed to keep people contained but only for a certain amount of time. They’re used in stalling and delaying tactics, but also teaching on occasion; he said this one is likely the former. Once your party enters the room, you can’t leave until you’ve activated one of the cursed objects inside and fulfilled the terms of _its _curse. Now, though, none of the objects in the room are magically active except the one Peter’s touched. Is that all correct?”

Thor immediately nodded, but it was Strange who said aloud, “Yes, all correct. Speaking of which, can someone please find said object so I can examine it?”

Tony didn’t want to look, yet, at where he could hear Strange checking Peter over. “All good, doc?” he heard Peter say, cheerful, and Strange laughed warmly. Tony watched Thor cross to them and crouch down, plucking a small silver object from the ground, turning it over in his hand. It was a small brooch, Tony saw as he stepped nearer; heart-shaped with a crown at the top, inlaid with rubies and tiny pearls, the metalwork fine and detailed with little knotting patterns like those that had arced across the walls and floors. 

It seemed innocuous enough, but Strange’s face went pasty white when he saw it, stepping back from Peter like he’d been burned. Tony’s growled _What is it? _overlapped with Peter’s panicked little _please don’t leave me _as he was left unsupported in his newly blind and deaf world; he stepped forward and wrapped a hand around the boy’s upper arm, saying again with urgency, “Strange, what is it?”

The room was still and quiet. Strange looked to Thor, deferring, who shrugged one large shoulder and suggested gently, “It could be a _Luckenbooth_ without that necessarily being the terms of the curse. We should first decipher the message on the wall before doing anything—” Tony’s stomach turned as the demigod’s electric blue eyes turned meaningfully on Peter. “—rash.”

Tony jerked the kid into his chest protectively, ignoring his little sound of protest as he did so. “You aren’t killing him,” he heard himself say as though through a tunnel. In his arms, Peter said something like, _Jesus, Mr. Stark, calm down, your heart is really racing. _

Strange broke in immediately, insisting calmly, “No, Stark, that isn’t what we are worried about. Can you just keep an eye on him while we work on the Gaelic? I think I saw a book somewhere in here about Scotland, maybe there’s enough material to get a good handle on a translation. Will you assist me, Thor?”

...

Being blind and deaf after years of having super sight and super hearing was... disarming, to say the least. Panic-inducing, if Peter was being honest. But he had other super senses. For example, he could smell each person in the room; he knew for certain who was there and who wasn’t and had a vague impression of how close they were. He also had the vaguest of “spidey-senses” about what was going on when people tried to communicate with him—nearly every time he guessed on a gut feeling, he received the single finger-tap that affirmed his suspicions.

He was seated on a couch, his feet drawn up under him and one knee pressed against Mr. Stark’s thigh. It made him feel safer, somehow, to have a physical connection—proof that he had not been abandoned in his dark, silent world. He kept his eyes shut, nearly meditating, his thoughts loud in the absolute absence of sound. However, Peter could sense growing distress from his mentor—could feel his heart rate rise in spikes against his knee, felt the jerking of tensing muscles as the man (Peter assumed) gestured angrily as he spoke. He wondered what was wrong. Mr. Stark usually only got this worked up nowadays when he was protecting Peter—which was often, ever since he’d made official Junior Avenger—something that never failed to make him feel warm and giddy. 

Now, though, he mostly just felt scared. “What’s going on?” he asked, forcibly shutting out the horror he felt when he failed to hear his own voice. That was the main reason he’d stayed so quiet; the existential horror of being unable to confirm the tangibility of his own words. 

The next moments were mostly only his impression of the changes in energy in the room, courtesy of his powers, but he felt everyone freeze, as though they’d maybe forgotten he was there; then someone stepped towards him with an intent he couldn’t name, that was grim but not malicious. He felt Mr. Stark throw his arm across his body, his palm pressed protectively over Peter’s racing heart, and he could _feel _the man’s raised voice as he spoke to (yelled at) whoever had approached. 

Another moment passed, and Mr. Stark’s fingertips pressed harder into his chest. “What’s going on?” Peter repeated, helpless, frustrated. Of course, there was no answer.


End file.
